Disassembled

LibreOffice 5.3 Released, Called ‘Most Feature-Rich Release’ Ever A new month, and a brand new version of open-source office suite LibreOffice is now available to download. And what a release it is. LibreOffice 5.3 introduces a number of key new features and continues work on improving the look and feel of the app across all major platforms. The Document Foundation describes LibreOffice 5.3 as ‘one of the most feature-rich releases in the history of the application’. That’s a pretty bold claim. Does it live up to it? Let’s take a look… LibreOffice 5.3: New Features http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/02/libreoffice-5-3-released-billed-feature-rich-release-ever The above addy is included because I'm not going to embed the video here in this article. You can also find the download link at the bottom of the article at it's source link. http://youtu.be/S64aPmRPGTY The latest update to roll out under the steerage of The Document Foundation introduces (among many things) some experimental new UI layouts designed to make the app easier to use. We’ve told you about the MUFFIN interface project — MUFFIN stands for My User Friendly & Flexible Interface — a fair bit over the past few months, but if you haven’t heard of it it’s a new UI initiative that introduces 4 different layouts for LibreOffice applications, including a Microsoft Ribbon-esque tabbed UI and a slim, simplified, single panel toolbar. Writer gains a new ‘Go to Page’ dialog box to help users jump to specific pages within a document; a selection of table styles has been implemented in Writer; and the app now boasts a small set of drawing tools. A new safe mode feature has been added. This let you start LibreOffice with a temporary clean user profile, and will be of help when trying to troubleshoot or fix a broken configuration. The feature can be found in the Help menu. Anew text layout engine using HarfBuzz is included. This will help ensure ‘consistent text layout across all platforms’, the TDF say. ‘All text layout now goes through HarfBuzz, there is no longer any distinction between so-called simple and complex scripts.’ libreoffice emoji picker Yup, emoji support in LibreOffice If you’re regularly opening and editing documents that originate from Microsoft Office you’ll be happy to hear that Office URL Schemes are now supported in LibreOffice. Keyboard shortcuts appear in context menus. This helps you discover and learn keyboard shortcuts for features. If you don’t like their presence you can turn them off via the Tools > Options > View > Menu menu. Simplified document recovery dialog The Emoji One font included to offer Emoji support Experimental toolbar to insert Emojis New color palettes, including recently used Redesigned extension manager Media playback panel Preview option in Styles & Formatting sidebar Insert PDFs into your documents as images No new release would be worth its salt without some the usual shrinking of interoperability tweaks for Microsoft Office and other documents, bug fixes, and general performance tweaks. LibreOffice 5.3 also sees the first source release of LibreOffice Online. This is a cloud-based office suite which provides basic collaborative editing of documents in a browser using the LibreOffice “core engine”. This is solely a server service for enterprise and large organisations and is not something any Jane or Josh will want to write. Builds of LibreOffice Online source code are available as Docker images @ hub.docker.com/r/libreoffice/online. You can find a comprehensive rundown of every change, big and small, in the official release notes for LibreOffice 5.3. LibreOffice 5.3 is available to download for Windows, macOS and Linux right this very second. You’ll find installers and full release information on The Document Foundation website. Download: Windows 64bit: http://donate.libreoffice.org/home/dl/win-x86_64/5.3.0/en-US/LibreOffice_5.3.0_Win_x64.msi Windows 32bit: http://donate.libreoffice.org/home/dl/win-x86/5.3.0/en-US/LibreOffice_5.3.0_Win_x86.msi MacOS_x86-64: http://donate.libreoffice.org/home/dl/mac-x86_64/5.3.0/en-US/LibreOffice_5.3.0_MacOS_x86-64.dmg Linux_x86-64_deb.tar: http://donate.libreoffice.org/home/dl/deb-x86_64/5.3.0/en-US/LibreOffice_5.3.0_Linux_x86-64_deb.tar.gz Linux_x86-64_rpm.tar: http://donate.libreoffice.org/home/dl/rpm-x86_64/5.3.0/en-US/LibreOffice_5.3.0_Linux_x86-64_rpm.tar.gz Linux_x86_deb.tar: http://donate.libreoffice.org/home/dl/deb-x86/5.3.0/en-US/LibreOffice_5.3.0_Linux_x86_deb.tar.gz Linux_x86_rpm.tar: http://donate.libreoffice.org/home/dl/rpm-x86/5.3.0/en-US/LibreOffice_5.3.0_Linux_x86_rpm.tar.gz

How tech ate the media and our minds Let's face it: most of us are more distracted and more frazzled than ever. We are prisoners to our phones: tweeting our every thought, or snapping our every emotion, or Facebooking our every fantasy, feeling or family moment. We scroll, click and swipe our days away, better connected than at any point in humanity — but not necessarily better informed. We've been hit with more technological innovations than we are capable of responsibly handling. Ten short years ago: The iPhone was born, Facebook was a small social network used mostly by college students, and there was no Snapchat, Instagram or Pinterest. Most people still relied on three network evening newscasts and a local newspaper, hand delivered, to be informed about current events. If you wanted to share a photo, you probably mailed it; if you wanted to share your opinion, you screamed it at the TV in your basement or wrote a letter to the editor, maybe by hand. But then technology blew up — and blew (and took over) our minds. Now, every day there are: 1.2 billion web pageviews, per Chartbeat Billions of Google searches, per Google 13.8 billion hours + of video shared on YouTube, per Google 13M audio/video calls made on Facebook Messenger, per Facebook 50 billion messages sent on WhatsApp, per Facebook 500 million Tweets sent, per Twitter Our brains have been literally swamped and reprogrammed. On average, we check our phones 50 times each day — with some studies suggesting it could three times that amount. We spend around 6 hours per day consuming digital media. As a result, the human attention span has fallen from 12 seconds to eight seconds since 2000, while the goldfish attention span is nine seconds. And we just mindlessly pass along information without reading or checking it. Columbia University found that nearly 60 percent of all social media posts are shared without being clicked on. For better or worse, Google and Facebook are mostly to blame. Nearly 60% of our media-consumption time happens in mobile apps, and a majority that traffic is owned by those two companies. This paradigm has destroyed the business model for news publishers, creating perverse incentives for publishers to generate as many clicks as possible, creating a "crap trap" — the deal media companies made with the devil to dumb things down (and lose credibility) by seeking the broadest reach. But, the house always wins: Facebook and Google now eat up almost two thirds of all ads and gobbled up 90 percent of all growth in media spend — while publishers perish. And, at least for now, the more we know, or can see, the less we trust. Roughly 62% of U.S. adults get news on social media and 68% of people don't trust the news they see or read. Think about that: most people don't trust REAL news. The proliferation of fake news is almost certain to get worse, as we see left-leaning groups racing to adapt manipulative techniques that helped conservatives in 2016. Case in point: A 2016 BuzzFeed News analysis found that top fake election news stories generated more total engagement on Facebook than top election stories from 19 major news outlets combined. This has created a conundrum: There is more good information than at any point in humanity, but it's harder than ever to find and trust. Almost every trend cited here is getting worse, not better. And so much of the power to change it rests in the hands of the few, mainly Facebook but also Google, Twitter and Snapchat. Some publishers are putting the emphasis on quality content, which can help. And others are moving fast to adapt serious news and information to better fit in these exploding off-platform ecosystems. But ultimately, the burden will fall on individual consumers to exploit what should be the golden age of information by adjusting their own habits. https://www.axios.com/searching-for-information-nirvana-2248588151.html

Microsoft Allowed to Sue U.S. Government Over E-mail Surveillance Microsoft Corp. persuaded a judge not to let the U.S. government out of a lawsuit alleging the company’s free-speech rights are violated by a law that blocks it from alerting users to the clandestine interception of their e-mails. The judge said Microsoft has at least made a plausible argument that federal law muzzles its right to speak about government investigations, while not ruling on the merits of the case. "The public debate has intensified as people increasingly store their information in the cloud and on devices with significant storage capacity,” U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle said in Thursday’s ruling. “Government surveillance aided by service providers creates unique considerations because of the vast amount of data service providers have about their customers." Robart rejected the tech giant’s argument that the so-called sneak-and-peek searches amount to an unlawful search and seizure of property. Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch had argued that federal law allows the Justice Department to obtain electronic communications without disclosure of a specific warrant if it would endanger an individual or an investigation. Robart, a 2004 appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, has already riled President Donald Trump this month by halting a temporary ban on visitors, immigrants and refugees from seven mostly Muslim countries. Trump labeled Robart a “so-called judge” and called his ruling in that case “ridiculous.” Microsoft sued the government in April, escalating a feud with the U.S. over customer privacy and the company’s ability to disclose what it’s asked to turn over to investigators. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft drew support in the case from tech leaders including Apple Inc., Google and Amazon.com Inc., which argued the very future of mobile and cloud computing is at stake if customers can’t trust that their data will remain private. They said the federal law allowing the searches goes “far beyond any necessary limits” and infringes users’ fundamental rights. “We’re pleased this ruling enables our case to move forward toward a reasonable solution that works for law enforcement and ensures secrecy is used only when necessary,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s chief legal officer, said in a statement. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the ruling while the department reviews it. The Justice Department and Lynch defended the searches, saying they need digital tools to help fight increasingly sophisticated criminals and terrorists who are savvy at using technology to communicate and hide their tracks. In the portion of Thursday’s ruling that sided with the government, the judge said he could not reconcile the company’s attempt to assert the Fourth Amendment protection against invasive searches on behalf of its customers with earlier court decisions. Other courts have found that such rights can only be asserted by individuals, and not vicariously by third parties, he said. Still, Robart recognized that the law used by the government to block Microsoft from informing users about searches “means customers whose accounts have been accessed by the government may never know of the search.” Secrecy orders on government warrants for access to private e-mail accounts generally prohibit Microsoft from telling customers about the requests for lengthy or even unlimited periods, the company said when it sued. At the time, federal courts had issued almost 2,600 secrecy orders to Microsoft alone, and more than two-thirds had no fixed end date. In those cases, the company can never tell customers about government searches, even after an investigation is completed. The industry’s push against government intrusion into their customers’ private information began in the wake of Edward Snowden’s 2013 disclosures about covert-data collection that put internet companies on the defensive. Microsoft concedes that there may be times when the government is justified in seeking a gag order to prevent customers under investigation from tampering with evidence or harming another person. Still, the company contends the statute authorizing the gag orders is too broad and sets too low of a standard for secrecy. The case is Microsoft Corp. v. U.S. Department of Justice, 16-cv-00538, U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington (Seattle). https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-09/microsoft-can-pursue-suit-over-u-s-sneak-and-peek-searches

State-sponsored hackers targeting prominent journalists, Google warns Google has warned a number of prominent journalists that state-sponsored hackers are attempting to steal their passwords and break into their inboxes. Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine said he received several messages from Google warning him about an attack from a government-backed hacker starting shortly after the election. He said the most recent warning came two to three weeks ago. Julia Ioffe, who recently started at The Atlantic and has covered Russia for years, said she got warnings as recently as two weeks ago. Some journalists getting the warnings say they suspect the hackers could be Russians looking to find incriminating emails they could leak to embarrass journalists, either by revealing alleged liberal bias or to expose the sausage-making of D.C. journalism. "The fact that all this started right after the election suggests to me that journalists are the next wave to be targeted by state-sponsored hackers in the way that Democrats were during it," said one journalist who got the warning. "I worry that the outcome is going to be the same: Someone, somewhere, is going to get hacked, and then the contents of their gmail will be weaponized against them — and by extension all media." Chris Cuomo: CNN being called fake news is 'the equivalent of the N-Word' The Russian embassy did not respond to a request for comment. Google cautioned that the warnings did not mean the accounts had been compromised already and were sent due to "an abundance of caution." “Since 2012, we’ve notified users when we believe their Google accounts are being targeted by government-backed attackers,” said a Google spokesperson in a statement. “We send these warnings out of an abundance of caution — they do not indicate that a user’s account has already been compromised or that a more widespread attack is occurring when they receive the notice.” Ezra Klein, the founder of Vox, said he had received the warning as recently as a few days back. CNN senior media reporter Brian Stelter said he has been getting the alerts for the past few months. Other journalists who confirmed they’ve recently gotten the warnings include New York Times national security correspondent David Sanger, Times columnist Paul Krugman and Yahoo Washington bureau chief Garance Franke-Ruta. GQ special contributor Keith Olbermann said the warnings started a few weeks after the election, and he received the most recent alert earlier this week, a “big bright red bar” across the top of his Gmail. Some of the reporters say they are tightening up their email security to try to prevent the hackers from getting in. Chait also said he was “contacted over email by a stranger who offered to help me by giving me an encryption key to protect me from hackers. He would not give me his name, meet me or talk on the phone, despite repeated requests.” The stranger also emailed The Atlantic’s David Frum, James Fallows and Adam Serwer, Andrew Sullivan and Ars Technica’s Dan Goodin. Stanford professor Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said he also received hacking warnings from Google. He added: “Given my background, one would have to guess that it’s the Russians.” http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/google-hackers-russia-journalists-234859

The husband who wants a happy marriage should learn to keep his mouth shut and his checkbook open. ~ Groucho Marx Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution. ~ Mae West A good wife comes from God and a good husband comes from the bank. ~ Unknown “Getting married for sex is like buying a 747 for the free peanuts” ~ Jeff Foxworthy “I have learned that only two things are necessary to keep one's wife happy. First, let her think she's having her own way. And second, let her have it.” ~ Lyndon B. Johnson “Getting married is a lot like getting into a tub of hot water. After you get used to it, it ain't so hot.” ~ Minnie Pearl "Behind every great man there is a surprised woman." ~ Maryon Pearson (¯`·._.··¸.-~*´¨¯¨`*~-.,-,.-~*´¨¯¨`*~-.¸··._.·´¯)

The continual arms race marches on. A solution is found to fix or patch one item and three more are found in a global effort by hackers to penetrate systems. One of the largest contributors to this is the Windows monoculture. At over 80% of all computers world wide running Windows, the hacker goes for the biggest splash for the effort. Thank you for the post uk666. It's largely through efforts such as yours to inform those that don't read such articles that a wider public is educated to the perils of computer vulnerabilities.

Why are all Windows drivers dated June 21, 2006? Don’t you ever update drivers? Why are all Windows drivers dated June 21, 2006? Don't you ever update drivers? Are you just a bunch of slackers? What's more, the date of June 21, 2006 applies even to drivers like Storage Spaces, which didn't even exist in 2006! Has the Research division been using their time machine again? The dates on all Windows drivers are set to June 21, 2006. The version number increases over time, but the timestamp stays put. My colleague Zac explains: When the system looks for a driver to use for a particular piece of hardware, it ranks them according to various criteria. If a driver provides a perfect match to the hardware ID, then it becomes a top candidate. And if more than one driver provides a perfect match, then the one with the most recent timestamp is chosen. If there is still a tie, then the one with the highest file version number is chosen. Suppose that the timestamp on the driver matched the build release date. And suppose you had a custom driver provided by the manufacturer. When you installed a new build, the driver provided by Windows will have a newer timestamp than the one provided by the manufacturer. Result: When you install a new build, all your manufacturer-provided drivers get replaced by the Windows drivers. Oops. Intentionally backdating the drivers avoids this problem. It means that if you have a custom manufacturer-provided driver, it will retain priority over the Windows-provided driver. On the other hand, if your existing driver was the Windows-provided driver from an earlier build, then the third-level selection rule will choose the one with the higher version number, which is the one from the more recent build. It all works out in the end, but it does look a bit funny. Zac told me, "It's an awesome example of something that seems stupid and insignificant turning out to have a profound purpose." https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170208-00/?p=95395

NSA contractor indicted over mammoth theft of classified data An aerial view of the National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters in Ft. Meade, Maryland, U.S. A former National Security Agency contractor was indicted on Wednesday by a federal grand jury on charges he willfully retained national defense information, in what U.S. officials have said may have been the largest heist of classified government information in history. The indictment alleges that Harold Thomas Martin, 52, spent up to 20 years stealing highly sensitive government material from the U.S. intelligence community related to national defense, collecting a trove of secrets he hoarded at his home in Glen Burnie, Maryland. The government has not said what, if anything, Martin did with the stolen data. Martin faces 20 criminal counts, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison, the Justice Department said. "For as long as two decades, Harold Martin flagrantly abused the trust placed in him by the government," said U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein. Martin's attorney could not immediately be reached for comment. Martin worked for Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp when he was taken into custody last August. Booz Allen also had employed Edward Snowden, who leaked a trove of secret files to news organizations in 2013 that exposed vast domestic and international surveillance operations carried out by the NSA. The indictment provided a lengthy list of documents Martin is alleged to have stolen from multiple intelligence agencies starting in August 1996, including 2014 NSA reports detailing intelligence information "regarding foreign cyber issues" that contained targeting information and "foreign cyber intrusion techniques." The list of pilfered documents includes an NSA user's guide for an intelligence-gathering tool and a 2007 file with details about specific daily operations. The indictment also alleges that Martin stole documents from U.S. Cyber Command, the CIA and the National Reconnaissance Office. Martin was employed as a private contractor by at least seven different companies, working for several government agencies beginning in 1993 after serving in the U.S. Navy for four years, according to the indictment. His positions, which involved work on highly classified projects involving government computer systems, gave him various security clearances that routinely provided him access to top-secret information, it said. Unnamed U.S. officials told the Washington Post this week that Martin allegedly took more than 75 percent of the hacking tools belonging to the NSA's tailored access operations, the agency's elite hacking unit. Booz Allen, which earns billions of dollars a year contracting with U.S. intelligence agencies, came under renewed scrutiny after Martin's arrest was revealed last October. The firm announced it had hired former FBI Director Robert Mueller to lead an audit of its security, personnel and management practices. A Booz Allen spokeswoman did not have an immediate comment on Martin's indictment. Martin's initial appearance in the U.S. District Court of Baltimore was scheduled for next Tuesday, the Justice Department said. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cybersecurity-nsa-contractor-idUSKBN15N2N4

Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin announces her retirement Aretha Franklin, Barack Obama once said, would be one of the musicians whose records would accompany him to a desert island, “for she’ll remind me of my humanity, what’s essential in all of us. And she just sounds so damn good”. No other musician, the then-president said, “embodies the connection between the African-American spiritual, the blues, R&B, rock and roll – the way that hardship and sorrow were transformed into something full of beauty and vitality and hope … American history wells up when Aretha sings”. But could the Queen of Soul finally be stepping back from her grand piano? After a career of more than 50 years, the woman widely held to be the greatest soul vocalist of the postwar era announced this week that she was planning to stop touring. “I must tell you, I’m retiring this year,” the 74-year-old told the Detroit TV station WDIV Local 4, saying she wanted to spend more time with her grandchildren before they left to go to college. First, though, she will record an album part-produced by Stevie Wonder to be released in September, about which Franklin said she felt “exuberant”. Stepping back from performances was bittersweet, she said. “This is what I’ve done all of my life.” But she added: “I feel very, very enriched and satisfied with respect to where my career came from and where it is now.” And well she might. In more than five decades as a soul and R&B superstar, Franklin has won 18 Grammy awards, sold more than 75m records, sung at three presidential inaugurations (for Obama, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter), and influenced generations of musicians across soul, R&B, gospel, pop and rock. In 2010, Rolling Stone named her the greatest singer of all time (“a force from heaven... a gift from God”); Bob Dylan wrote a poem praising her; Otis Redding, hearing her 1967 version of Respect (which he had written), conceded ruefully: “She done took my song.” She remains the female soloist with the most Hot 100 entries in history, above Madonna, Dionne Warwick, Beyoncé and Diana Ross. The youngest of four children of a well-known preacher, CL Franklin, she was born in Memphis in 1942 but grew up in Detroit. There she was exposed to soul and jazz royalty: Oscar Peterson, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald visited the family; Dinah Washington gave Aretha and her sisters singing lessons. Her father was a close friend of Martin Luther King. But it was not an easy life. Franklin gave birth to two children while still a young teenager and went on to have two more; she would marry twice, both ending in unhappy divorces. Franklin begun performing by opening for her father’s preaching engagements and was signed by Columbia records in 1960, though it was not until she moved to Atlantic in 1967 that she became hugely successful, releasing a cascade of hits that included Respect, Chain of Fools, I Say a Little Prayer and the self-penned Think and Rock Steady. Though her popularity faded in the era of disco, an appearance in the Blues Brothers movie in 1980 and pop collaborations, including 1987’s I Knew You Were Waiting with George Michael, brought a renewed wave of fans. Having developed a fear of flying, she toured only where she could travel by bus, but continued to release albums, including a collection of “diva” cover versions in 2014. Franklin’s performance of Adele’s Rolling in the Deep on the David Letterman show was watched millions of times within a few days of release. “There is hardly any artist alive who has not been influenced by Aretha – I can’t think of anyone who hasn’t been moved by her struggle, her work, her music,” said Kanya King, founder and CEO of the Mobo awards. “To us, Aretha will never retire because anyone who loves black music will always cherish the raw emotion and history of the music she has brought us within our souls. That said, I can’t wait for her final album to come out; how amazing will that be?!” The music writer Richard Williams said Franklin was rightly called the Queen of Soul. “There’s a kind of natural majesty to her in everything - in her voice, in her bearing,” he said. “Nobody has ever been more successful in making a direct connection from black American gospel music, the things that make that so emotionally powerful, to a general popular audience. When you hear Aretha sing you feel that full strength, and that’s what shivers you. Even when she’s singing a song that makes you dance, somewhere inside you are still getting that astonishing power. “Her voice is still absolutely there and it’s hard to imagine that she won’t want to stand up in front of an audience or a congregation – because that’s what she turns an audience into – at some time in the future.” And indeed, despite her vow of retirement, all may not yet be lost for those keen to see Franklin perform live. After the album release, she told the TV station, she would probably still do “some select things, maybe one a month”. “I’m not going to go anywhere and just sit down and do nothing. That wouldn’t be good either.” https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/feb/09/aretha-franklin-stevie-wonder-announces-her-retirement

Yeap, that was my issue. Had a friggin' lot of computers, nearly all with dvd drives but nope, not in a state where it's being supported.

If you owned a PC with a DVD drive you might be able to claim $10 If you owned a PC with a DVD drive more than 10 years ago, you’re probably owed $10. A class-action lawsuit is now accepting claims https://www.opticaldiskdriveantitrust.com/#two after Sony, NEC, Panasonic, and Hitachi-LG were accused of inflating the prices of optical drives sold to PC makers like Dell and HP. If you bought a PC with a DVD drive between April 1st 2003 and December 31st 2008, you’ll be able to claim $10 for each drive as part of the class-action lawsuit. CNET reports that you don’t appear to need any proof of purchase, and that the settlement administrators are simply collecting names, email addresses, and the number of drives owned at the moment. You’ll need to submit a claim before July 1st, and the money won’t be released until other defendants in the litigation have settled. Sony, NEC, Panasonic, and Hitachi-LG have submitted $124.5 million to the overall settlement, leaving enough cash to compensate around 9.3 million DVD drive sales according to CNET. You’ll need to have purchased a DVD drive as a resident of the following states to claim: Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, or Wisconsin. http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/7/14531334/dvd-drive-optical-disk-class-action-settlement

A Crack in an Antarctic Ice Shelf Grew 17 Miles in the Last Two Months A rapidly advancing crack in Antarctica’s fourth-largest ice shelf has scientists concerned that it is getting close to a full break. The rift has accelerated this year in an area already vulnerable to warming temperatures. Since December, the crack has grown by the length of about five football fields each day. The crack in Larsen C now reaches over 100 miles in length, and some parts of it are as wide as two miles. The tip of the rift is currently only about 20 miles from reaching the other end of the ice shelf. Once the crack reaches all the way across the ice shelf, the break will create one of the largest icebergs ever recorded, according to Project Midas, a research team that has been monitoring the rift since 2014. Because of the amount of stress the crack is placing on the remaining 20 miles of the shelf, the team expects the break soon. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/02/07/science/earth/antarctic-crack.html

Problem is, this software controlling all this, not hardware; like a physical switch to turn it off. In paranoia land, it could be turned back on remotely without your knowledge even though the software still says it's off. Of course according to the FBI, CIA, and NSA, that type of thing could never happen where a camera records without the light being on. Funny how there's been a lot of tape sold lately. At this point, I want nothing that has IoT connected to it. All these makers of products were good about putting in spy apps but not so good about being concerned with security. In a proof of concept, some hackers used a drone to fly within a 100 foot of an IoTs controlled light set up in a home and were able to turn them into bot nets. There's no set up to turn it off, to upgrade the BIOS, nor to change the programming. It will remain part of a botnet til replaced. Even worse than all this, is now ransomeware is able to infect your smart tv. I can't for the life of me figure out why I would want a smart tv, given all this.

Inauguration Protesters Targeted for Facebook Searches Law enforcement is seeking social media info from least two D.C. protest arrestees. On Wednesday, one of the individuals who was arrested at protests over the inauguration of Donald Trump received an email from Facebook’s “Law Enforcement Response Team.” (CityLab obtained the email from the individual’s attorney on the condition of anonymity for both the client and their representative.) More than 230 protesters had been arrested that day, and many—including the individual who’d received this email—were charged with rioting and had their phones seized by Washington, D.C., police. The police have been holding Inauguration protesters’ phones since the arrests. Did D.C. police ask Facebook to reveal information about this arrestee? In an emailed response to CityLab’s request for more information, Rachel Reid, a spokesperson for the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, responded that “MPD does not comment on investigative tactics.” The District of Columbia United States Attorney's Office—the agency leading the prosecution of Inauguration protesters—has not yet responded to CityLab’s inquiry. CityLab also asked Facebook about the email. “We don’t comment on individual requests,” company spokesperson Jay Nancarrow said. He referred CityLab to the site’s law enforcement guidelines page and to its Government Requests Report database, where the public can see how many legal processes it receives from countries worldwide. According to this database, U.S. law enforcement requested information on the accounts of 38,951 users over January to June of 2016, and they received some type of data in 80 percent of cases. Which “legal process” authorities sent to Facebook for information on the protester matters considerably in terms of how much data they can seize for investigation. According to Facebook’s legal guidelines, a search warrant, for example, could allow Facebook to give away content data including “messages, photos, videos, timeline posts, and location information.” A subpoena or a court order would give authorities less information, but would still include the individual’s “name, length of service, credit card information, email address(es), and a recent login/logout IP address(es).” Freddy Martinez, director of the Chicago-based police accountability group Lucy Parsons Labs, says that information acquired through a lower-level legal process could still be revealing. ”Asking for IP data could point toward a physical location—i.e. an apartment—that people stayed in and could widen the net for further prosecution of other protesters," he says. D.C. police have been heavily criticized by civil liberties groups for the inauguration arrests, particularly those of lawyers and journalists. The broad nature of the arrests prompted an immediate class action lawsuit. Concerns have also been raised about the police’s decision to hold the phones of all those arrested. As CityLab reported last week, one arrestee’s Gmail account showed account activity from their mobile device, which was in police possession. This prompted questions about whether the police had the phones out, instead of properly securing them away in evidence bags, causing concerns that police were mining them for content pre-trial. UPDATE: At least one other inauguration arrestee has also been targeted for social media investigation. A subpoena issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia on January 27, 2017 and signed off on by a D.C. Metropolitan Police Detective asks Facebook for subscriber information. According to the source who provided the subpoena to CityLab on Monday morning, the redacted blocks on the second page shield columns of phone numbers, which are connected to other arrestees for whom the District Attorney and police are seeking information. http://www.citylab.com/crime/2017/02/inauguration-protesters-targeted-for-facebook-searches/515517/ The same old, same old. If you have a cell phone, you have your own individual and personal spy you carry with you all the time. I've no issue with what they might find on a cell phone if I carried one. I've no dastardly deeds planned, no ill will wishes that require someone injured, no need to call some drug pusher for some sort of delivery, nothing that I can think of that would raise the interest of law enforcement in any manner. Not because I'm hiding anything but rather because I live a routine and probably boring life to most. Still the idea that this sort of thing is a consistutional issue from the word go right on up to this business with the contents of a phone is upsetting in the sense of how personal privacy is being violated. Not to mention how insidious it is with modern everyday life. Use a browser on line, you give your geo-location up as part of the process unless you have either altered or gotten a browser that has been changed not to do so. Drive a car now a days that is computer controlled, with internet connections, the GPS will tell anyone with access to the data where you are, what your daily routine is, where you work, and who your friends are. Same with a cell phone and it's GPS. Maybe the Amish have something with the shunning of modern tecnology.

Facebook shareholders urge company to replace Mark Zuckerberg with ‘independent’ board chair Facebook is being pressured by a group of shareholders seeking the removal of company chief executive Mark Zuckerberg from the board of the directors. A proposal has been put forward claiming that an independent chairperson would be better able to “oversee the executives of the company, improve corporate governance, and set a more accountable, pro-shareholder agenda.” The idea for Zuckerberg’s board ousting comes from Facebook shareholders who are members of the consumer watchdog group SumOfUs. The organization bills itself as an online community that campaigns to hold corporations accountable on a variety of global issues such as climate change, workers’ rights, discrimination, human rights, corruption, and corporate power grab. Facebook declined to comment on the proposal, but it’s likely to issue a statement when it files a proxy filing in April, as is per standard practice with shareholder proposals. Lisa Lindsley, the capital markets advisor for SumOfUs, told VentureBeat that 333,000 people signed the petition requesting Facebook improve its corporate citizenship, but 1,500 were actual shareholders in the company. “The shares held by four individual SumOfUs members enabled us to file this proposal,” she said. The proposal cites the new capital structure approved by Facebook last year as an example of where there was an imbalance of power. During the company’s shareholder meeting in June, participants were asked to vote on a proposal to issue Class C shares in a bid to keep Zuckerberg in control. Although approved, Facebook is dealing with litigation brought on by at least one shareholder who claimed it was an unfair deal. Issuing the Class C shares was intended to help Zuckerberg continue his long-term vision and “encourage” him to remain involved with the company over the long term. The plan came after the Facebook CEO announced in 2015 that he and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, would be giving away 99 percent of his family’s shares to various groups in a bid to promote child equality. The proposal states that shareholder value will be enhanced with an independent board chair “who can provide a balance of power between the CEO and the board and support strong board leadership.” It goes on to assert that this individual would be “particularly constructive” at a time when Facebook “faces increasing criticism regarding its perceived role in the promotion of misleading news; censorship, hate speech and alleged inconsistencies in the application of Facebook’s community standards guidelines and content policies; targeting of ad views based on race; collaboration with law enforcement and other government agencies; and calls for public accountability regarding the human rights impacts of Facebook’s practices.” Having someone be both the CEO and chairperson isn’t a unique situation for companies, as Tesla, Bank of America, the Walt Disney Company, IBM, Amazon, Netflix, and Salesforce all have one person sitting in both roles. It’s doubtful that Facebook will acquiesce to the group’s demand, especially since Zuckerberg is one of the largest shareholders and could strike the proposal down easily, along with other allied investors. There are those who think having the founder in charge is a good thing for the company, especially as it pursues the goal of being first in virtual reality and video. Additionally, it’s not as if Facebook is in a precarious financial situation: Its stock continues to go up — its last earnings results surpassed what Wall Street analysts had expected, and the company appears in fine shape to compete against Snap after finally finding its groove in the ephemeral messaging space. But what SumOfUs is probably worried about is the likelihood of Zuckerberg taking Facebook down a path he believes is right, but putting too much of the company behind it, which may result in damaging impact on shareholder value. Having an independent chairperson could stem that, according to the proposal. Should Facebook implement this proposal, it would be an additional independent director joining Susan Desmond-Hellmann, Reed Hastings, Erskine Bowles, Marc Andreessen, and Peter Thiel on the board. Lindsley acknowledges the uphill battle in getting the SumOfUs proposal approved when the company convenes its annual investor meeting: “This shareholder resolution, like most shareholder resolutions, is advisory in nature,” she said. “There could be a 99 percent vote in favor of it and the board would not be under legal obligation to implement it. However, most competent board members realize that it is unwise to ignore the voice of the shareholders whose interests they are charged with representing.” http://venturebeat.com/2017/02/06/facebook-shareholders-urge-company-to-replace-mark-zuckerberg-with-independent-board-chair/

Well considering I had a gig as a sort term waiter at the last supper, guess I'm older than dirt. *smiles*

IMDb is shutting down its long-running, popular message boards after 16 years After 16 years, IMDb’s message boards and the ability to privately message other users is shutting down, with many members of the community openly mourning the loss of the section. IMDb, which stands from the Internet Movie Database, is one of the world’s biggest databases for film and television. According to the company, there is information on more than 4.1 million titles and 7.7 million personalities available on the site as of January 2017. The message board, which was introduced in 2001, reportedly remains one of the most used services on the website, but despite that, the company is getting ready to shut it down, citing a desire to foster a positive environment and serve its audience the best way it can. “After in-depth discussion and examination, we have concluded that IMDb's message boards are no longer providing a positive, useful experience for the vast majority of our more than 250 million monthly users worldwide,” a statement on the site reads. “The decision to retire a long-standing feature was made only after careful consideration and was based on data and traffic.” Despite the company’s reasoning for the decision, longtime users of the message boards and private messaging function were quick to point out that losing the ability to use those services wouldn’t give them a reason to return to the site anymore. Even though IMDb’s message board community is upset over the removal of the communication platform, the company isn’t the first publication to do away with public, loosely moderated comment sections. Various newspapers, magazines and online publications have decided to close comment sections citing similar concerns about fostering a more positive environment for all users. In a followup email, an IMDb spokesperson neglected to offer any more information on the decision, pointing to the statement available on the site as comment. Targeted harassment, sexism, homophobia and racism have been longstanding issues in most comment sections and IMDb readers have pointed out the company’s community wasn’t much better. Multiple people on Twitter have pointed out that IMDb’s discussion boards have become a hotbed for internet trolls while others have questioned why it took so long for the website to come to this decision. In its announcement, IMDb added that it understood the message boards were an important part of daily users’ visit, and that’s why the announcement was made weeks in advance. “Because IMDb's message boards continue to be utilized by a small but passionate community of IMDb users, we announced our decision to disable our message boards on February 3, 2017 but will leave them open for two additional weeks so that users will have ample time to archive any message board content they'd like to keep for personal use,” the statement reads. “During this two-week transition period, which concludes on February 19, 2017, IMDb message board users can exchange contact information with any other board users they would like to remain in communication with (since once we shut down the IMDb message boards, users will no longer be able to send personal messages to one another).” This is a problem that many on line and social sites have experienced. It's been remarked on time and again. The result is often the closure of comments section and in some cases, entire sites. No one is quite sure how to deal with the troll and those who employ snark aggressively anymore. It takes so much time that finding moderators who will do the job for free are hard to locate and keep. I tend to think the internet atmosphere has changed. I go back a ways with the computer to the days of BBS boards, before the internet came to town. Mostly the people who used those services were more technical in mindset and understood not everyone had the same background and that it was new so many had no clue how to accomplish things. So a helping hand rather than a put down was more in order. Those people today are now either seniors or approaching that status in age. Those who tend to employ snark and aggressive posting stances tend to be younger. What were in the older days a rarity of owning a computer is now an every household item and computer skills are now taught in the classroom. This has allowed those with less self learning drive access to the same places once haunted by the enthusiast. The level of understanding no longer exists and the anonymity of the internet now encourages trollish behavior with the belief that it will never affect the individual in real life. Newspaper article commenting, forums, and many other community type internet sites have been shutting down. Unable to come up with answers to deal with the aggressive troll behavior that has poisoned many of these sites, they have abandonded the outreach of the communtity as no longer being worth the time, effort, and money, to provide the service. Sad days indeed.

These 10 cities have the worst malware infection rates in the US Malware attacks are on the rise across the US, but some cities are more susceptible than others, according to a recent report from Enigma Software Group (ESG). In 2016, Tampa, Orlando, and St. Louis each had malware infection rates per capita more than five times the national average—the highest in the US, the report found. Those same three cities were also at the top of the list of highest infection rates in 2015. "There could be a number of factors including the demographics of the area, how widespread PC usage is (versus Mac or mobile devices), we've even seen weather play a role in infections from time to time," said ESG spokesperson Ryan Gerding in a press release. "The important thing is that people in these cities, and everywhere else for that matter, need to always remain vigilant against malware, spyware, and other nefarious online activity." ESG compiled malware detection data from its SpyHunter anti-spyware software in the 100 largest cities in the US in all of 2016. Enterprises should be on the lookout for ransomware attacks in particular: Nearly half of businesses report that they were the subject of a cyber-ransom campaign in 2016, according to a recent Radware report. These attacks cost organizations an estimated $1 billion in 2016, ZDNet reported. Ransomware attacks will continue to rise in 2017, experts predict, and will continue to target business users. Cyber attacks via cloud-based applications and spam are on the rise this year as well, according to a recent Cisco security report. Here are the cities with the highest rates of malware infections in 2016. 1. Tampa, Florida Tampa experienced malware attacks at rates 540% higher than the national average. The city is home to three of Florida's top 10 public companies: Tech Data, Jabil Circuit, and WellCare Health Plans. 2. Orlando, Florida Orlando reached number two on the list of highest malware infections per capita in 2016, at rates 525% higher than the national average. Major companies located in Orlando include JetBlue, AAA, and Lockheed Martin. 3. St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis rounds out the top three on the list, with malware rates 520% higher than the national average. World Wide Technology, Graybar, and SuddenLink Communications are all based in St. Louis. 4. Denver, Colorado At number four on the list, Denver's malware rates were 407% higher than the national average—more than 100% lower than St. Louis's rates. Denver is home to Arrow Electronics, DISH Network, and Frontier Airlines. 5. Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta's per capita malware rates were 370% above the national average in 2016. Mercedes-Benz, Yik Yak, and MailChimp are headquartered in Atlanta. 6. Newark, New Jersey At number six, Newark experienced malware attacks at rates 322% higher than the national average. Audible Inc., IDT Corporation, and Prudential Financial are based in Newark. 7. Madison, Wisconsin Madison, home to EatStreet, Full Compass Systems, and Alliant Energy, saw malware infections at 272% higher than the national average. 8. Washington, DC The nation's capital was the eighth highest hit with malware attacks in 2016, at rates 242% higher than the national average. The headquarters of Marriott Hotels & Resorts and The Data Incubator are located in Washington, DC. 9. Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland, home to the Sherwin-Williams Company and Goodyear, had malware attacks 213% higher than the national average. 10. Cincinnati, Ohio Rounding out the top 10 was Cincinnati, with malware rates 194% higher than the national average. Procter & Gamble Co., Mitsubishi, and GE Aviation are headquartered in Cincinnati. I'm not sure what the correlation between location and malware is. The internet is global, not local. In this I think the article writer is being lazy or just plain page filling. This problem is not new. Many year/day/hours have been spent on this problem by some of the brightest minds in security. The issue pretty much always comes down to the average everyday user. The ability to realize not everything that arrives in the email in box should be opened or that a moment or two of forethought is a required job skill when communicating on the internet. This seems to be something that not everyone can learn to hold in the forefront of the mind while going through email. So the ultimate answer will be something of a software solution that doesn't need user interaction in order to protect networks and intranets. It's a people failing more than anything. You could look at this list in another way. Anywhere there are consolidations of data, that's a target for hacker access. So what you see in this list could be read as cities with corporate headquarters concentrations or tech centers rather than geolocation infection rates. Again reflecting that the author of this article was lazy more than anything.

A Hacker Just Pwned Over 150,000 Printers Left Exposed Online A grey-hat hacker going by the name of Stackoverflowin says he's pwned over 150,000 printers that have been left accessible online. Speaking to Bleeping Computer, the hacker says he wanted to raise everyone's awareness towards the dangers of leaving printers exposed online without a firewall or other security settings enabled. Automated script behind the "attacks" For the past 24 hours, Stackoverflowin has been running an automated script that he wrote himself, which searches for open printer ports and sends a rogue print job to the target's device. From high-end multi-functional printers at corporate headquarters to lowly receipt printers in small town restaurants, all have been affected. A first version of the message included ASCII art depicting a robot, and also listed the hacker's email address. The second (latest) version of the message includes ASCII art depicting a computer and a nearby printer. Stackoverflowin's actions haven't gone unnoticed, and many people went online to ask for details, such as HP's official support forum, StackExchange, Spiceworks, local forums, Reddit, YouTube, and Twitter. Multiple printer brands affected Users reported multiple printer models as affected. The list includes brands such as Afico, Brother, Canon, Epson, HP, Lexmark, Konica Minolta, Oki, and Samsung. Stackoverflowin told Bleeping Computer that his script targets printing devices that have IPP (Internet Printing Protocol) ports, LPD (Line Printer Daemon) ports, and port 9100 left open to external connections. The script also includes an exploit that uses a remote code execution vulnerability to target Dell Xeon printers. "This allowed me to inject PostScript and invoke rouge jobs," Stackoverflowin told Bleeping about the RCE vulnerability's role. It was only a joke The hacker, who says he's done his share of security work, claims his intentions were all good. "Obviously there's no botnet," he says. "People have done this in the past and sent racist flyers etc.. I'm not about that, I'm about helping people to fix their problem, but having a bit of fun at the same time ; ) Everyone's been cool about it and thanked me to be honest." The incident Stackoverflowin is referring to happened in March 2016, when famous hacker Weev has made thousands of Internet-connected printers spew out anti-Semitic messages. A report released last week reveals the overall sorry state of printer security. Researchers argued that printers could be used as entry and pivot points when attacking corporate networks. This is not a new problem. Nor is it isolated to just printers. In the last year, IoT connected hardware has been used to create ever larger bot nets for the purpose of DDoS attacks on scales not previously reached. Large enough that small countries have had their internet access knocked off line. The big problem here is lack of security written into software at the start. Companies and corporations see security as something with a cost and no visible payback. In the end there is a payback in customer loyality but it's not one that can be counted and totalled as a benefit. They see it more as how little can we get by with. Until a corporation or company has their nose rubbed in it by bad press or an on line attack, there is no payback for including better security. You see this all the time with hacking releases of members/customers and their personal data as well as financial info released for sale on darkweb sites. The internet news is full of these, showing that security through obscurity doesn't work. Worse that many companies will sue an individual for reporting lax security issues rather than spend the time to fix it. This appears to be an ethical hacker and not a malicious one. He's at least giving notice and warning of exposure.

Thank you Tech 425. Definatetly makes the post far more value. Appreciate it.

GoDaddy CEO: If we can't hire skilled immigrants, they'll set up their own Silicon Valleys in their home countries The H-1B visa program — which enables U.S. companies to hire high-skilled foreign workers — has become a political lightning rod but remains essential for American companies to hire the technical talent they need to compete on a global scale, said GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving. "We do not produce enough technically qualified candidates in this country," he said. "You can't take an 18-month training program and produce a machine-learning scientist." President Donald Trump may soon sign an executive order revamping the H-1B visa system which, along with a related program, makes 85,000 temporary work visas available each year and is widely used by U.S. tech companies to fill technical roles. A draft executive order suggests existing policies prioritize foreign workers and aims to make sure the programs instead safeguard and emphasize "the jobs, wages and well-being of United States workers." Irving was particularly concerned about overseas competition. The American university system is good at training foreign workers for tech jobs, and it is essential that the U.S. government allows them to stay in the country to fulfill U.S. jobs, he said. Otherwise, we train workers from countries like China and India and then send them back to those countries to set up tech ecosystems that compete with Silicon Valley, Irving said. Though there may be marginal instances in which some companies abuse the H-1B system to replace American workers with cheap foreign workers, those practices are extremely rare, Irving said. "There's always going to be some marginal groups that will abuse the system, it's true," he said. "There is a fraction of abuse." Forty percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants and H-1B workers fulfill highly paid roles where existing demand cannot be met by domestic candidates, he said. "This isn't about trying to export jobs," Irving said. "People get confused with H-1B exporting jobs — that's just not the case." Pure BS. The US has been allowing foreign students in forever to study. England in essence missed the internet pheonomon so they didn't get search giant on the net. There's still not one there. My point being as bad as they want a home grown rival, one hasn't taken root. According to studies, there is no lack of STEM graduates. Something like 85% or higher of STEM graduates never work in their studied feild because of a lack of jobs. There never has been a shortage of STEM workers. There's been a lack of willingness by industry to pay the going wages and benefits to national labor. I'll even give you an example of why. Almost every major industry has trade secrets and patented processes that allow their product to be unique in some manner. That uniqueness comes because in most cases they make this product in some special manner. Doing so takes special equipment that in all probablity no one else has or uses in like manner. So requiring years of experience on some process/machine/method is a smoke screen and always has been. Back in the 70s and 80s, companies had on the job training programs to teach you these special procedures done their way and method. As part of cost savings and profit increases, companies did away with OJT. It became a simple thing to demand any worker have detailed knowledge of a process that likely only they used. Suddenly no one qualified and that allowed them to go for H1B vistas to claim no one was hirable. It's all BS, nothing else. If it was about foreign countries exporting jobs, the US has been training those with a possible to do this for longer than I've been alive. It's not one company abusing the system with H1B workers; it's about all of them doing that.

Use of Ad-Blocking Software Rises by 30% Worldwide Facebook has tried to ban it. Google has attempted to outsmart it. But no matter what these tech giants do, people’s use of software to block digital advertising — often the lifeblood of companies’ online business models — keeps gaining traction worldwide. In total, roughly 11 percent of internet users globally relied on ad blockers to avoid some form of digital advertising last year when surfing the web. That equates to more than 600 million devices, from smartphones to traditional computers. The figure represents a 30 percent annual increase, according to a new report published on Wednesday by PageFair, a start-up that helps companies recoup some of this lost advertising revenue, which now totals tens of billions of dollars each year. By using software to block digital advertising, critics say, users are breaking an unwritten pact with websites and digital publishers, many of which generate the bulk of their revenue from these ads. Yet industry watchers say such ad-blocking digital tools have garnered a mainstream following, particularly across the developing world where their use in countries like Indonesia has already reached roughly two-thirds of the internet population. “There’s been a massive surge of mobile ad-blockers in these countries that no one anticipated,” said Sean Blanchfield, chief executive of PageFair. “In the West, I expect the same trend to blindside us in the very near future.” This rise of ad blockers has not gone unnoticed by the advertising industry. In August, for instance, Facebook — one of the world’s largest purveyors of online ads — tried to block people from using such software on its social network. The company’s efforts, though, led to an arms race with tech start-ups offering new ad-blocking tools, as both sides have tried to outmatch each other. “Ad blocking is a detriment to the entire advertising ecosystem,” Paul Verna, an analyst at the research firm eMarketer, said in a statement. “The best way for the industry to tackle this problem is to deliver compelling ad experiences that consumers won’t want to block.” Across the developing world, ad-blocking software is primarily used by people to save on often costly data packages by removing video and other data-hungry advertisements from mobile websites. More than 90 percent of all ad-blocking on mobile devices worldwide still takes place in the Asia-Pacific region, according to the PageFair report. And last year, such software was used on 380 million smartphones and tablets around the globe, a 39 percent yearly increase. In contrast, the vast majority of ad-blocking on traditional computers, whose use similarly jumped 17 percent last year, to 236 million devices, is still restricted mainly to the United States and Europe. In those regions, people’s efforts to block malware disguised as online advertising has been the main motivation for downloading ad blockers. “In the U.S., ad-blocking on mobile is slightly immature,” Mr. Blanchfield said. “But there’s no doubt that people’s use of it will skyrocket.” I've used ad blockers for many years and will continue to do so. I go to a place that requires the ad blocker turned off, no problem at all, I leave. I don't want that site counting my eyeballs for their profit in figuring out how much to charge for ads. There is no unwritten agreement about viewing ads. These ad companies have shoved it down our throats, using our bandwidth without asking if they could, risking our computer security in the process, and then to add insult to injury, steal our personal data without permission to use as income. That's no agreement and it never was. Every site that draws income from ads wants you viewing their ads for income. Only when it comes to malvertising and you getting a dose of it, suddenly when that happens no one wants to talk to you about it. No one wants to hear about it. It's your problem and the fix is on you. If the fix is on me, so is the cure.

Researchers build flu detector that can diagnose at a breath, no doctor required The influenza virus is a sneaky little bugger. In most cases, you have no idea you’re infected with it until you start to show symptoms — and by that point, it’s too late. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was some sort of early-detection device that could tell us who is secretly harboring a virus before it spreads around the entire office? Good news: That is precisely what researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington have created with a prototype breathalyzer-style device capable of detecting flu in its early stages. “What I have created — together with my research team and research collaborators working on this project — is a single exhale, portable, handheld, potentially wireless, battery-operated, inexpensive, breathalyzer that relies on gas-selective sensing elements, and which detects the presence and monitors the concentration of biomarkers in breath that signal a disease,” Perena Gouma, a professor in the university’s Materials Science and Engineering Department, told Digital Trends. The specific biomarkers the breathalyzer looks for include traces of nitric oxide and ammonia, both of which can be measured using smart sensors. “This particular breathalyzer detects flu virus infection,” she continued. “This is expected to be a personalized diagnostics tool available over the counter and it will allow the individuals to monitor their health, with the option of sharing the data obtained with their physician in real time.” Gouma has previously developed other breathalyzers, for everything from asthma detection and diabetes monitoring to determining an endpoint for hemodialysis, the process of filtering waste products from the blood. The neat thing about breathalyzers, Gouma said, is that the technology involved can be easily modified to detect different diseases simply by changing the sensors. In this example, for instance, it could be upgraded to instead test for Ebola. “Use of the breathalyzer can make a significant different to catch an epidemic early and treat the sufferers, especially children and the elderly, in a timely manner,” Gouma explained. “It will also reduce the cost of healthcare.” Sadly nothing about providing germaphobe tech bloggers with a means to scrutinize sneezing colleagues, though. As for when this technology may be available, Gouma said the team needs to carry out clinical trials, “but we are already exploring our options for commercializing this tool.”

Windows DRM Files Used to Decloak Tor Browser Users Attacks using DRM-protected multimedia files in Windows have been known since 2005, but until recently, they've only been used to spread malware. Past attacks tried to lure users into opening and playing DRM-protected files. In default scenarios, these files would open in the Windows Media Player, and users would see a popup that asked them to visit a URL to validate the file's license. Users who agreed were redirected to an "authorization URL." Unknown to users is that malware authors could modify these links and point users to exploit kits or malware-laced files. Hacker House researchers found out that this popup asking users if they wanted to visit the authorization URL would only appear for DRM files that have not been signed with the proper tools. If the attacker signed the DRM-protected multimedia files with official Microsoft SDKs such as Windows Media Encoder or Microsoft Expression Encoder, the popup would not show, and the user's player would automatically open an Internet Explorer instance and access the authorization URL. Deanonymization attack is expensive Hacker House researchers say the cost of properly signing DRM multimedia files ranges around $10,000, a sum that many low-end malware authors aren't willing to pay for such a niche attack. Nonetheless, the same is not true for determined state-sponsored attackers or law enforcement agencies, who have the financial and physical resources to support such an attack infrastructure. For example, law enforcement could host properly signed DRM-protected files on sites pretending to host child pornography. When a user would try to view the file, the DRM multimedia file would use Internet Explorer to ping a server belonging to the law enforcement agency. The same tactic can also be used to target ISIS militants trying to view propaganda videos, illegal drug and weapons buyers trying to view video product demos, political dissidents viewing news videos, and more. A video showcasing the deanonymization attack is available below, courtesy of Hacker House researchers. Unless M$ does something about this to fix it, the same thing will happen to Windows DRM protected files that happened to wma files back in the day. When DRMed wma files first came out, no protections were put on going to an authorzied server for a license. It would display a message saying you didn't have a license and ask if you wanted to go buy one and had it set up as an autoconnect link if you said yes. An outfit called Loudeye started hijacking those connections to distribute a trojan. Since there were no protections to prevent it from doing so, they were free to do that for the major entertainment companies that paid them to do it. It got to where no one would accept a wma file. It was a dying format till Microsoft put in protections to prevent such hijacks. Seems old things are readapted for new uses time and again.

Hello speedbrain, weclome to CyberPhoenix. It's a friendly place here. Got some good folks in it too. Take the time to get to know a few of them. Cya around the board sometime!